Notes from the Wayside: Perspective: Worst Prophet Ever

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Worst Prophet Ever

The citizens of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it as guilty, because they changed their hearts and lives in response to Jonah's preaching. And look, someone greater than Jonah is here.

Matthew 12:41 (CEB)

Tried to give you warning
But everyone ignores me
Told you everything loud and clear
But nobody's listening
Called to you so clearly
But you don't want to hear me
Told you everything loud and clear
But nobody's listening

From "Nobody's Listening" by Linkin Park

In the Bible, we read a number of stories in which God calls people to be prophets. People whom God calls to be prophets tend to express some initial reluctance. For example, when Jeremiah, my favorite prophet, is called by God to speak on God's behalf, he says, "Ah, Lord God, I don't know how to speak because I'm only a child."¹ God always responds to the prophets' reluctance with reassurance and empowerment. For example, God tells Jeremiah to not belittle himself and then touches his mouth, giving him words to say.²

The Book of Jonah does not tell a typical story, because the titular character is no typical prophet.

When God calls Jonah to "go to Nineveh," the capital city of the dreaded Assyrian Empire, and "cry out against it," Jonah responds not with reluctance but with outright disobedience, and he takes his disobedience to the extreme. He flees to Joppa and boards a boat headed for Tarshish, a city thousands of miles in the opposite direction. God, who is always eager to encourage the prophets, is not going to let Jonah simply run away from his calling, so God sends a violent storm to batter the ship. The members of the ship's crew do everything they can possibly do to weather the storm, until they finally casts lots to figure out who angered the gods. Naturally, the lot falls on Jonah, so they confront him.³

One might expect Jonah to repent at this point, but one would be wrong. Instead of praying to God and agreeing to do what God has called him to do, he says to the crew, "Pick me up and hurl me into the sea! Then the sea will become calm around you." Jonah would rather die than do what God has called him to do. The crew members pray that Jonah's God will not hold Jonah's death against them, and then they throw the unwilling prophet into the sea, as he instructed them. Unwilling to let Jonah drown in the sea, God sends a big fish to swallow Jonah alive.⁴

Jonah spends three days and three nights in the belly of the beast. Finally, he prays to God for mercy, perhaps realizing how lucky he is to still be alive. God hears his prayer and causes the fish to spew him up onto dry land.⁵

God has given Jonah a second chance at life and a second chance to be a prophet. Once again, God calls him to go to Nineveh and to speak on God's behalf to the people. This time, Jonah actually does what God has called him to do. He goes into the city and cries out, "Just forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown!"⁶ According to the Common English Bible, a translation I often read, Jonah speaks a total of nine words to the people of Nineveh. In the original Hebrew text, he speaks only five words.⁷ I suppose it's possible that this short message is merely a summary of what Jonah says to the people of Nineveh, but it surely does not appear that he has very much to say to them. One might think that he's not trying very hard to communicate God's message to them.

The Hebrew prophets tend to have a lot more to say to the people God typically wants to reach through them, namely the people of Israel and Judah. For example, on one occasion, the prophet Jeremiah stands outside the temple in Jerusalem and cries out, at God's command,
Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah, you that enter these gates to worship the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and let me dwell with you in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: "This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord."
For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever.⁸
This is only part of what Jeremiah says on one particular occasion. We can read pages upon pages of what he says on God's behalf to the people of Judah.

Jonah might not have much to say to the people of Nineveh, but they actually believe what he has to say. They repent of their ways, and as a sign of their penitence, they put on sackcloth and begin fasting. Word reaches the king of Nineveh of what Jonah has said about the impending downfall of his city, and he issues a proclamation that all of the people of Nineveh - and also their animals - are to begin fasting, put on sackcloth, and cry out to God in the hopes that God hears their cries, sees their penitence, and decides to have mercy on them.⁹

The people of Israel and Judah are a lot less receptive of the prophets God sends to them. Jeremiah, for example, suffers greatly at the hands of the people who do not want to hear what he has to say. On one occasion, when a priest hears Jeremiah speak, he beats the prophet and puts him in stocks.¹⁰ On another occasion, an angry mob tries to have him executed.¹¹ At least twice, he is imprisoned.¹² Once he is thrown into a cistern full of mud.¹³ This faithful prophet, despite his best efforts, is unable to convince his people to change their ways. He can do nothing but watch the Kingdom of Judah meet its fate at the hands of the Babylonian Empire. Known as the weeping prophet, he composes a Book of Lamentations about the destruction of Jerusalem.

Jonah might be the least faithful of God's prophets, but he is ironically the most successful. When God sees the penitence of the people of Nineveh, God decides to spare the city.¹⁴ One might think that, as a prophet, Jonah would be happy about his success, but, once again, one would be wrong. Jonah becomes so angry that he wants to die. He says to God,
O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.¹⁵
Jonah did not want to prophesy to the people of Nineveh, because he hates them and wants God to destroy them.

People often see the story of Jonah as a warning to not run from God. Some people see it as a testament to God's love for all people, even the people we consider our enemies. I once suggested that the story shows us the extreme measures God will take to get through to someone. Some people just wonder if a person really can survive in the belly of a big fish for seventy-two hours. Now I cannot help but think that story of Jonah might be intentionally comical or even satirical, because it is the opposite of what one would expect from a story about a Hebrew prophet.

The Book of Jonah sticks out like a proverbial sore thumb among the prophetic writings in the Hebrew Bible. In most of the prophetic writings, faithful prophets of God try, to no avail, to convince the people of God to turn from their destructive ways. The Book of Jonah rather offensively suggests that, if God sent God's very worst prophet to the enemies of God's people, they would go over the top in their repentance - that even their animals would fast and wear sackcloth. The Book of Jonah tells a ridiculous story that makes hard-hearted people who refuse to listen to God seem ridiculous by comparison.

Notes: